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Updated: May 11, 2025
It fell again and again, and when McTaggart was done, Baree lay half stunned, his eyes partly closed by the blows, and his mouth bleeding. "That's the way we take the devil out of a wild dog," snarled McTaggart. "I guess you won't try the biting game again, eh, youngster? A thousand devils but you went almost to the bone of this hand!" He began washing the wound again.
But Gregson enjoyed his visits too much at Lac Bain. Always he could count on two weeks of coarse pleasures. And in addition to that, his own womenfolk at home wore a rich treasure of fur that came to them from McTaggart. One evening, a week after the adventure of Nepeese and Baree under the rock, McTaggart sat under the glow of an oil lamp in his "store."
The new trail was the FRESH trail, and he followed in the footsteps of the factor from Lac Bain. McTaggart did not know what was happening until his return trip, when he saw the story told in the snow.
And from cap to snowshoes he was TRAVEL WORN. McTaggart, at a guess, would have said that he had traveled a thousand miles in the last few weeks.
M'sieu, the factor at Lac Bain, was leaving on a journey in five days, and he had sent DeBar as a special messenger to request Pierrot to come up to assist the clerk and the half-breed storekeeper in his absence. Pierrot made no comment at first. But he was thinking. Why had Bush McTaggart sent for HIM? Why had he not chosen some one nearer?
"Mon Dieu, I tell you his feet are as big as my hand, and he is as black as a raven's wing with the sun on it!" he exclaimed in the company's store at Lac Bain. "A fox? Non! He is half as big as a bear. A wolf oui! And black as the devil, m'sieus." McTaggart was one of those who heard. He was putting his signature in ink to a letter he had written to the company when Lerue's words came to him.
When he arrived at the second cabin, late in the afternoon, Baree's tracks were not an hour old in the snow. Three times during the night he heard the dog howling. The third day McTaggart did not return to Lac Bain, but began a cautious hunt for Baree.
But again it was her hair. She paused to fling back the thick masses of it so that she could see, and McTaggart was at the door ahead of her. He did not lock it again, but stood facing her. His face was scratched and bleeding. He was no longer a man but a devil. Nepeese was broken, panting a low sobbing came with every breath. She bent down, and picked up a piece of firewood.
No, that was not like Pierrot's voice! A chill ran through McTaggart now, and slowly he let go of Nepeese. She fell to the floor. Slowly he straightened. "Is it not true, m'sieu?" said Pierrot again. "I have come in time?" What power was it what great fear, perhaps, that made McTaggart nod his head, that made his thick lips form huskily the words, "Yes in time." And yet it was not fear.
McTaggart had seen to that. Again Baree squatted back on his haunches and sent forth the death howl. This time it was for Pierrot. In it there was a different note from that of the howl he had sent forth from the chasm: it was positive, certain. In the chasm his cry had been tempered with doubt a questioning hope, something that was so almost human that McTaggart had shivered on the trail.
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